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The Museum’s Collections document the fate of Holocaust victims, survivors, rescuers, liberators, and others through artifacts, documents, photos, films, books, personal stories, and more. Search below to view digital records and find material that you can access at our library and at the Shapell Center.

Oral history interview with Henry Bulawko

Henry Bulawko, born November 25, 1918 in Lida, Lithuania (now Belarus), describes his five brothers and sisters; moving with his family to Paris, France in 1925 in response to the French call for laborers; life during the occupation; the deportation of his sister with her child and husband; his father’s death in 1935; his mother going into hiding and the dispersal of his siblings, most of whom survived; the fate of his family in Lithuania; his father, who was a rabbi in Lithuania and in Paris; his family’s formal religious life; life as a foreign worker in Paris; the economic depression of 1929 and the rise in unemployment and fascism; campaigns against immigrant workers and the effects on the Jewish community; attending a Jewish school in Paris; the National Socialist youth movement; being attracted to communism because of its activity against fascism; Germany propaganda; trying to enlist after the declaration of war and being refused because he had been recently naturalized; leaving Paris with his family the day of the German invasion; working with a group to bring food to imprisoned youth; collecting money for families with imprisoned husbands and making plans to hide children; printing false identification cards; trying to convince people to leave Paris; joining a brigade of socialists who approached the communists for arms and deciding not to join the communists; being upset by the early Nazi victories; the insufficiency of the radio; not knowing about the ghettos and camps in the rest of Europe; the moral problems of resistance and loyalty to one’s family; the lack discipline in the resistance movement; and the struggle for the individual and the family to survive.

Yvette Baumann Farnoux, born September 10, 1919 in Alsace, France, discusses not knowing that she was Jewish until she went to school in the 1930s; becoming aware of problems around 1934 when she saw refugees from Germany; living in Paris, France until 1942; studying to become a social worker; joining the resistance movement; not being worried about being Jewish until her father was denounced in 1942; a French policeman visiting to confirm that he was Jewish and telling the family that they should flee immediately; moving often during the war; being detained in Paris in 1944 when she was eight months pregnant; being taken to Blois, France, where she miscarried; an unsuccessful escape attempt; her imprisonment for one month in Fresnes before being transferred to Drancy that March; being sent to Auschwitz II-Birkenau; her experiences on a death march to a camp in Czechoslovakia; being liberated by the Soviets; going back to Paris in May 1945; helping to form a group to rehabilitate children; reflecting upon the war; living in Senegal, where she married an American man; having another child; and working for humanitarian associations.

Georges Amrouche, born December 21, 1925 in the 20th arrondissement in Paris, France, discusses his early life; his mother, Solonges Caron, and father, Mohammad Amrouche; how his education was interrupted in 1940 when they were forced to leave Paris with his parents and two brothers; their flight from Paris and being fired on by Germans; arriving in Loches, France in lodging provided by the Red Cross in the Château de Loches; Senegalese resistance fighters defending Loches against Germans two days after the Amrouche arrived there; being captured by the Germans and returned to Paris; the 1942 notice from Germans to report for labor in Paris; escaping to join the French Free Forces; crossing the demarcation line; paying a smuggler to get him into Spain; staying with a priest in small Spanish town and being betrayed by a parish maid; his arrest and torture by Spanish civil police; spending six months in a Spanish prison camp called Miranda De Ebro along with other nationalities fleeing their countries to join the Free French Forces; conditions in the prison camp; the negotiated release of 25 men from the concentration camp to the Gibraltar-Spanish border; being transferred to Gibraltar, where he received medical treatment and food; his three-week stay in Gibraltar; his two-week transport by Dutch cargo ship to Southampton, England; being recruited by a French officer of the French Free Forces; being transferred to London to sign up and receive training as a parachutist; expressing his desire to be a fighter pilot but being rejected because of his poor English; and being transferred to Halifax for training as a radar expert.

Learn about over 1,000 camps and ghettos in Volume I and II of this encyclopedia, which are available as a free PDF download. This reference provides text, photographs, charts, maps, and extensive indexes.